DAO

Abbreviation with 2 meanings

DAO
Stands forDecentralized autonomous organization
Meanings2
CategoriesTechnology & Computing

DAO has two meanings. It stands for Decentralized autonomous organization (cryptocurrency & blockchain) or Data access object (programming).

Meanings of DAO at a glance

#DAO stands forContext
1Decentralized autonomous organizationTechnology & Computing › Cryptocurrency & Blockchain
2Data access objectTechnology & Computing › Programming

1. Decentralized autonomous organization

Technology & Computing · Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Abbreviations

An organization governed by rules encoded in smart contracts, where members holding its tokens propose and vote on decisions such as spending from a shared treasury, without a traditional management hierarchy.

Example: The DAO voted to fund three open-source developers from its treasury for a year.

The first large example, The DAO, raised about $150 million in ether in 2016 before an exploit drained roughly a third of its funds, leading to the Ethereum hard fork. Wyoming recognized DAOs as a form of limited liability company in 2021. Low voter turnout and token concentration among large holders often undermine decentralization in practice. In programming, DAO means data access object.

2. Data access object

Technology & Computing · Programming Abbreviations

A design pattern that hides database operations behind an interface, such as UserDao.findById(), so business logic does not depend on SQL or a particular storage engine. It is especially common in Java enterprise code.

Example: Add a findByEmail method to the CustomerDAO instead of querying the table from the controller.

Popularized by Sun's Core J2EE Patterns catalog in the early 2000s. It overlaps with the repository pattern from domain-driven design. In cryptocurrency, DAO means a decentralized autonomous organization; class names and SQL point to the programming sense.

More cryptocurrency & blockchain abbreviations

  • CBDC – Central bank digital currency
  • CDP – Collateralized debt position
  • CeFi – Centralized finance
  • CEX – Centralized exchange
  • DApp – Decentralized application
  • DCA – Dollar-cost averaging
  • DeFi – Decentralized finance
  • DePIN – Decentralized physical infrastructure networks

See all 74 cryptocurrency & blockchain abbreviations →

More programming abbreviations

  • CQRS – Command Query Responsibility Segregation
  • CRLF – Carriage return and line feed
  • CRUD – Create, read, update, delete
  • CVS – Concurrent Versions System
  • DDD – Domain-driven design
  • DFS – Depth-first search
  • DI – Dependency injection
  • DP – Dynamic programming

See all 154 programming abbreviations →

Edited by the AbbreviationList.com team. Spotted an error or a missing meaning? Contact us.